Bagh­dad – Reports pre­pared by non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions have dis­closed that female detainees have been exposed to dis­grace­ful vio­la­tions at inte­rior min­istry sta­tions, includ­ing rape on behalf of inves­ti­ga­tors and obtain­ing con­fes­sions under threat and force, in addi­tion to phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal torture.

These orga­ni­za­tions have expressed their wor­ries regard­ing the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the con­di­tions of female detainees in deten­tion and inves­ti­ga­tion cen­ters of the inte­rior min­istry. They pointed out that the deten­tion cen­ters do not pro­vide with the min­i­mum nec­es­sary liv­ing con­di­tions.
The pub­lic pros­e­cu­tion, under the higher judi­ciary coun­cil, has acknowl­edged cases of com­mit­ting rape and assaults against female detainees in inte­rior min­istry sta­tions, on behalf of inves­ti­ga­tors at these cen­ters.
The jus­tice min­istry con­firmed that it received reports by the ref­or­ma­tion depart­ments (pris­ons) that indi­cate the exis­tence of orga­nized civil vio­la­tions. It clar­i­fied that human rights and jus­tice min­istry insti­tu­tions have con­firmed the occur­rence of these vio­la­tions.
On its behalf, the inte­rior min­istry has denied that any of its female detainees have been exposed to assault or rape on behalf of investigators.

Orga­nized Rape

A report pre­pared by the Iraqi National Asso­ci­a­tion for Human Rights, a non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion, has stated the exis­tence of vio­la­tions against female detainees at sta­tions and cen­ters of the inte­rior min­istry. Essam Al Jilbi, head of the asso­ci­a­tion has con­firmed “the occur­rence of some vio­la­tions against female detainees at inves­ti­ga­tion cen­ters, before trans­fer­ring them to pris­ons.” He added, “We have cre­ated a team from the asso­ci­a­tion for vis­it­ing Iraqi deten­tion cen­ters and pris­ons, to wit­ness the con­di­tions of detainees and pris­on­ers after noti­fy­ing the min­istries of jus­tice and inte­rior on Sep­tem­ber 4. These included the women’s deten­tion cen­ter of Al Kaz­imiyah, where we ver­i­fied the occur­rence of civil vio­la­tions against female detainees, which included orga­nized rape on behalf of inves­ti­ga­tors, in addi­tion to phys­i­cal assault and forc­ing female detainees on con­fes­sions. He accused “some inves­ti­ga­tion offi­cers of exceed­ing their com­pe­tence, in addi­tion to vio­lat­ing the cri­te­ria of just pro­fes­sional per­for­mance of their jobs, and employ­ing facts for the inter­est of a cer­tain party for per­sonal inter­ests, with regard to foren­sic med­i­cine.“

Al Jilbi added, “We have recorded sim­i­lar cases at Al Masba’ Police Sta­tion, which are relat­ing to obtain­ing con­fes­sions in a man­ner that vio­lates the Human Con­ven­tion for Human Rights.“
It is worth men­tion­ing that a report, which was issued by the research and stud­ies cen­ter of the Iraqi Human Rights Orga­ni­za­tion and pub­lished by Al Zaman ear­lier, has dis­closed the occur­rence of sex­ual, phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal vio­la­tions that detainees of both sexes have suf­fered from, includ­ing blind­ing eyes dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion, exces­sive beat­ing with sticks an plas­tic and metal pipes”, squeez­ing limbs, kick­ing and tying for long hours, in addi­tion to using elec­tric­ity and tor­ture.“
The report con­firmed that the Human Rights com­mit­tee has doc­u­mented 5 cases of rape at Iraqi inves­ti­ga­tion sta­tions, which have been exe­cuted on behalf of the inves­ti­ga­tion cen­ters’ elements.

Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion and Human Rights Con­firm the Violations

The pub­lic pros­e­cu­tion depart­ment has admit­ted receiv­ing sim­i­lar reports on behalf of the Iraqi ref­or­ma­tion depart­ments (pris­ons) and the Human Rights min­istry, which indi­cate the occur­rence of sim­i­lar vio­la­tions, such as beat­ing, tor­ture and rape, which female detainees have under­gone at inte­rior min­istry cen­ters. Hana Ali Fayyadh, a legal assis­tant in the pub­lic pros­e­cu­tion depart­ment, con­firmed that a report received by the depart­ment has dis­closed that the female detainee (Z.A.Kh) has been exposed to rape on behalf of Major (S), who is an affil­i­ate of the Big Crimes Depart­ment. This led the pub­lic pros­e­cu­tion pres­i­dency, which is the com­pe­tent author­ity for pub­lic rights, to address Al Karkh Inves­ti­ga­tion Court for Puni­tive Claims for fil­ing a law­suit, pur­suant to Arti­cle 393 of the penal code.
The female detainee (H.T.A) has also been exposed to tor­ture on behalf of the offi­cer (M.A.) at Al Hur­riya Police Sta­tion. We have also filed a puni­tive law­suit against the said sus­pect, pur­suant to Arti­cle 333 of the penal code. Fayyadh also con­firmed that the female detainee (F.A.) has been raped at the head­quar­ters of the inte­rior min­istry intel­li­gence and Al Baya’ Police Sta­tion on behalf of sev­eral per­sons, whom she is unaware of their names. On the other hand, three female detainees have been raped at the head­quar­ters of Big Crimes Depart­ment. We have also filed a law­suit, which is still in progress.
Fayyadh accused the pub­lic prosecutor’s depart­ment and the inte­rior min­istry of neglect­ing the “facts and sub­mit­ted law­suits, in addi­tion to their insis­tence that there are no vio­la­tions of this sort.”

Jus­tice Accuses Interior

On his behalf, Boshu Ibrahim Ali, jus­tice min­is­ter, stated, “No cases of human rights’ vio­la­tions have been spot­ted in Iraqi pris­ons.” He con­firmed, “The vio­la­tions take place at the inte­rior min­istry sta­tions, i.e. before trans­fer­ring female detainees to pris­ons of the ref­or­ma­tion depart­ment.“
Ali said, “We are aware of these vio­la­tions that we wit­ness through female pris­on­ers trans­ferred to us. Con­se­quently, we have addressed the com­pe­tent author­i­ties regard­ing such vio­la­tions for the pur­pose of stop­ping them and pun­ish­ing those in charge of them.
Within the same con­text, Fa’eza Mahdi Hazza’, direc­tor of Al Kaz­imiyah Women’s Prison, stated that a series of field vis­its on behalf of human­i­tar­ian orga­ni­za­tions and gov­ern­men­tal author­i­ties have con­firmed that our depart­ment is keen on main­tain­ing the civil rights of female detainees and no worth-mentioning vio­la­tions have been recorded. This has been doc­u­mented in reports kept on behalf of the depart­ment, includ­ing let­ters of thanks and appre­ci­a­tion.
Hazza’ stressed “address­ing and inform­ing the com­pe­tent author­i­ties with regard to the vio­la­tions against female detainees, whether dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion’ i.e. before join­ing us, or while serv­ing the penalty period.

Inte­rior Min­istry Denies…But?!

Mean­while, the inte­rior min­istry denied that the female detainees have been under­gone any phys­i­cal or sex­ual assaults in the min­istry deten­tion cen­ters. An offi­cial min­istry source said to Al Zaman, “There is no evi­dence that prove the occur­rence of a sin­gle rape case in a police sta­tion.“
The source con­tin­ued, “We do not deny the pres­ence of ele­ments with crim­i­nal records, who sneaked into the police author­ity after the fall of the regime, amidst the secu­rity absence that fol­lowed the fall. Some of them are still in ser­vice. We have more than one com­mit­tee, cre­ated in the inte­rior min­istry, for study­ing the files of ele­ments that are involved in com­mit­ting immoral and penal crimes and admin­is­tra­tive cor­rup­tion, in prepa­ra­tion for fir­ing them.“
He admit­ted, “Some police­men are rough dur­ing inves­ti­ga­tion, for the pur­pose of obtain­ing addi­tional infor­ma­tion that serves the inves­ti­ga­tion and obtain­ing names of part­ners in the case. Nev­er­the­less, these cases are scarce, as we reject this approach in the min­istry, due to the fact that it vio­lates human rights. It is worth men­tion­ing that we have com­mit­ted cases to judi­ciary, where pres­sure over sus­pects rep­re­sented a crime pun­ish­able by law.” He also admit­ted, “Some police ele­ments occa­sion­ally resort to the use of rough meth­ods while inves­ti­gat­ing sus­pects, for the pur­pose of obtain­ing infor­ma­tion that lead to set­tling the cases com­mit­ted to them, but they are not of a num­ber that makes us worry.” He con­firmed, “The min­istry of inte­rior rejects any meth­ods or prac­tices that con­tra­dict with the Inter­na­tional Con­ven­tion for Human Rights.” He referred to “com­mit­ting some per­sons, who are involved in prac­tic­ing ille­gal pres­sure dur­ing inves­ti­ga­tion, to judi­ciary to be legally punished.”

Source Al-Mendhar